Neighbours cats and my garden

ACG

Before i start, i dont want this to get into an argument about cats as that wont help anyone.

There are 3 cats from what i think are 3 different neighbours who seem to think its fine to spend the day in my garden and do what animals do. I would speak to the neighbours, but im not entirely sure which houses they belong to.

With summer coming, ill no doubt be having friends round and those friends have kids who are all quite young (2-5) and no doubt ill be having kids of my own in the next year so this kind of needs to be sorted sooner rather than later.

Ive had a read up on the laws and there seems to be law after law protecting the cat, but nothing protecting a homeowner and/or children.

I dont really want to be throwing money away on rubbish contraptions and as im in my 20's i want a maintenance free garden which just needs mowing once every now and again so plants arnt really a great option either....

So (after my rambling) im wondering if there are:
a) any laws, i can use (presuming a friendly chat doenst resolve the issue) to effectively force the neighbours hand to pay for a professional to clean it up or build a fort knox fence around my garden (its currently hedges).
b) anything else i can do?... and i dont mean walk around throwing orange peel everywhere.

Cheers.

ljonski

1) Make your garden cat proof.
2) buy yourself a water pistol !
3) Get a Rottweiler

aileth

Unfortunately there's no obligation on the cat owner to clean anything up, as when they're outside they're effectively a 'wild animal'. It would be polite, and I'd suggest being polite when asking. I had a woman a few doors down from ours wrongly accuse our cat of sh**ing in her garden (He is a house cat. She'd seen him in the window) and refused to believe there was more than one black cat around. The first thing she said when I opened the door (I'd never met her before) is, "Will you come and clean your cat's !!!! out of my garden?" She was really aggressive, and if she was actually polite I would've come if it could've been him. As it was, I couldn't even get a word in edgeways to say it can't have been my cat and she stormed off.

I'd suggest you definitely try and identify the cat, ask the owner politely when you've definitely linked it, and then if they're not interested even after being polite, I've heard you can get a garlic or lemon spray from B&Q to cover your boundaries as they hate it. Some cats seem to be immune from fancy sonic emitters.

ACG

Cheers for the quick replies.

It really annoys me that there is no legal route i can take (bar buying a new fence which isnt ideal as i actually prefer hedges and it will no doubt cost a fair few bob and involves me digging up hedges).

nikki2804

You could ask the owners to clean it up but as the owner is not responsible for the cat when its outside there would be very little you could do if they refuse I'm afraid.

quatrofromageo

Water pistols (or automated garden sprinklers set off by a motion sensor) are the way forward.
Unfortunately there's nothing else you can do.